As a money handling system for performing a deposit process of banknotes, there has been conventionally known a money handling system of a plural-stacker type, with a plurality of (three to seven) stacking units, the money handling system being configured to perform a deposit process while sorting banknotes by type (e.g., by denomination). Another conventionally known money handling system is a money handling system of a single-stacker type, with one stacking unit and one reject unit, in which all the deposited banknotes of various denominations are mixed and stacked in the one stacking unit.
In a case where a deposit process is performed by the conventional money handling system of a plural-stacker type while sorting banknotes by denomination, when the number of the stacking units is larger than the number of denominations, the deposit process can be performed at a time while sorting the banknotes by denomination. On the other hand, when the number of the stacking units is smaller than the number of denominations, it is necessary to cause one of the stacking units to function as a stacking unit in which banknotes of plural mixed denominations, which could not be sorted, are stacked during a deposit process. In the latter case, both the banknotes having been sorted by denomination and the banknotes of plural mixed denominations are recognized and counted, and an added sum is displayed as a deposit sum. After an operator has confirmed the displayed sum and given an instruction for deposit acceptance, the deposit process is completed.
In the conventional money handling system of a plural-stacker type, since the banknotes of plural mixed denominations are not sorted by denomination, it is necessary that, after a deposit process mode has been set so as to perform a deposit process, a sort process mode for sorting the banknotes of plural mixed denominations by denomination is selected so as to additionally perform a sort process.
On the other hand, in the conventional money handling system of a single-stacker type, since the number of the stacking unit is only one, the following procedure is necessary in order to perform a deposit process while sorting the banknotes by denomination. Namely, one of denominations is designated, only the banknotes of the designated denomination are sent to the stacking unit, the other banknotes are sent to the reject unit, and the banknote having been sent to the reject unit are again put into a hopper. Such a series of operations are repeated for the respective denominations.
Meanwhile, as a method for designating a denomination in the money handling system of a single-stacker type, there is known a method for designating a denomination of the normal banknote that is counted first, as a denomination of the stacking unit (JP9-106465A). In this method, although a denomination is automatically designated, an efficient deposit process cannot be performed. This is because, if the initial banknote among the banknotes put into the hopper again in the second deposit process is a reject banknote of the same denomination as that has been already sorted in the first deposit process, or if the denomination of the initial banknote is that of the smallest number of banknotes, the number of the banknotes sent to the stacking unit to be deposited in the second deposit process is small, and most of the banknotes are sent to the reject unit.
That is to say, in the conventional money handling system in which the number of the stacking units is smaller than that of the denominations, it is impossible to efficiently sort the banknotes by denomination while performing the deposit process.